Unexpected Outing
by Rue1
Summary: Shigure gets the surprise of his life when he finds that he has allowed a story that he wrote concerning his feelings for Hatori to be published by accident, making his longing for the dragon juunishi common knowledge in his household.


Unexpected Outing

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**Part One**

Shigure could tell at once that something was wrong.  First of all, no one returned his cheery morning greeting as he entered the dining room, not even the consistently cheerful Tohru-kun.  

        Second, his three younger housemates couldn't seem to take their eyes off of him as he proceeded to attack the bowl of rice and pork katsudon that Tohru had set before him with his usual gusto.  

        It was all very disconcerting because he didn't know what the matter was.  He'd dressed himself properly, he'd even checked his reflection on the mirror before going downstairs for lunch, so he knew that there was nothing wrong with his appearance.  He hadn't done anything particularly stupid or offensive lately either, so why were the youngster's eyes all drawn to him as though he held some sort of sick fascination for them?  

        After a few more minutes of the strange silent treatment, Shigure had finally had enough.  He set his chopsticks down regretfully, the katsudon was delicious and he didn't like having to take his attention off of it, even if it were for only a few minutes, and turned his attention to the fiery haired cat juunishi.  "What's the matter?"

        No answer.  Kyou just went on shoveling food down his throat as though Shigure had never even spoken.

        This surprised him.  Kyou had never been what you would consider a particularly polite young man, but he wasn't one to flagrantly disrespect Shigure without reason either.  So what had he done to deserve this?  "Hey!  Why are you guys ignoring me?" He whined, "Is there something wrong with me?  Did I do something bad?"

        "Of course not, Shigure-san!" Tohru reassured him hastily, still unable to look him in the eye.  She was staring down at her own bowl as though it held the answers to all of life's questions, the faintest hint of a blush tinting her cheeks.  At least she was talking to him, though.  That was better than nothing.  "Whatever makes you happy.  That's all that's important.  Really!"  

        "Huh?" Was Shigure's intelligent reply.  What was the girl going on about?  Slightly bewildered, the dog juunishi looked from Kyou, to Yuki, to Tohru and back again, hoping that he would get some sort of clarification from one of them.

        Eventually, Yuki took pity on him and began to speak haltingly, thinking each sentence through before actually verbalizing them." "Shigure, it doesn't matter to any of us," He began, looking and sounding touchingly sincere, though what it was that he was being sincere about, Shigure didn't know,  "We'll never forget how you took us in when we had nowhere else to go.  So as Honda-san said, whatever makes you happy is fine with us."

        "Besides, it didn't come as much of a surprise," Kyou contributed, his words sounding muffled as he forced them through a mouthful of food, "I mean, I didn't think it would be Hatori, the way that you flirt around with Yuki's brother, I thought that Ayame was more your type.  But Hatori is a nice guy, and I guess that he deserves to be with someone after all this time." Even if that someone _did_ happen to be _Shigure_, who was more likely to bring the poor man headaches than anything else.  

        At the mention of Hatori's name, Shigure's consternation increased.  Why was Kyou discussing 'his type'?  What did Kyou know about his type and what the hell was going on?  Most important of all, why were these kids bringing Hatori up all of a sudden?  He held up his hands before him, taking deep, even breaths to calm himself.  

It was silly of him to worry, he told himself over and over again.  They couldn't possibly have found out after ten years of keeping it all to himself.  There was just absolutely _no way_.  "Wait.  Let's go through this one more time.  This time slowly, all right?  Why _exactly_ are you bringing up Ha-san?"

        "Shigure-san, we _know_." Tohru told him meaningfully.  She leaned across the table and tentatively rested a hand over Shigure's own in a gesture that was meant to be reassuring, but which only succeeded in alarming him.

        "Know _what_?" This was the part where his life took a sudden American horror flick twist and Tohru-kun would tell him that they all knew what naughty things he'd done last summer with a couple of eighteen year old cuties that he'd met at a book signing.  Their parents had somehow found out and were pressing shota-con charges against him.  How horrific.  Him in jail.  He clenched his hands together into tight fists, expecting the very worst. 

        "About you and Hatori, idiot.  We don't care about those things, all right?  It doesn't matter to us, so you can just drop the act already." Kyou told him gruffly.  "We still like you.  Even if you are sort of annoying and even if you _are_ gay."

        Shigure had prepared himself for the worst case scenario that he could imagine, which had been a stint at the state penitentiary playing some big, body builder's unwilling uke, but he hadn't been prepared for this particular blow.  This was beyond that.  

He had thought that this would be just another Saturday morning spent lazing around, and now here he was, his bowl of tasty food getting cold, as the three kids that he had taken into his home hastily tried to reassure him that nothing had changed, even though they now knew one of Shigure's most jealously guarded secrets.  A secret that only one other person in the world was supposed to know about.  His dark eyes narrowed into slits as he remembered this person, "Ayame…" He hissed, managing to convey an incredible amount of malice in the utterance of that single name. "I'll _kill_ him…"

        "Ayame?  What the hell does Ayame have to do with anything?" Images of the Hana Mabudachi Trio members engaged in kinky forms of gay threesome sex overwhelmed Kyou.  He banged his head against the tabletop hard in an attempt to rid his mind of them, earning strange looks from his companions.  
  
        "He was the one that told you everything, wasn't he?  That little _snake_!" Shigure frowned.  When he thought about it, calling Ayame a 'little snake' wasn't that much of an insult.  He'd have to think of some better ones for that traitor for when he confronted him about this.

        But he was somewhat thrown off when Yuki shook his head.  "We haven't seen oniisan since the last time he came to visit you.  He never said anything about it then."

        So that pretty much exhausted Shigure's list of suspects.  There was no one else that knew about his thing for Hatori.  He couldn't figure it out.  "So how _did_ you know?" He had a journal that he kept, he thought that every struggling author should have one, not that he was struggling very much to make ends meet, but that was hidden away and pretty much only Tohru-kun ever entered his study.  He knew the girl very well, and he doubted that Tohru was in the habit of going through anyone's personal belongings.  

        Yuki flashed him a slightly disgusted 'why are you asking me such a stupid question when there's a ridiculously obvious answer to it' look.  "Shigure, if you didn't want anyone to know about what's going on between you and Hatori, then maybe you shouldn't have published that story."

        _That story!?!  _He instantly knew which one Yuki was referring to and he just froze.  "Oh my god…" He was in a state of shock.  _That story_?  This was _not_ happening to him.  It couldn't be.  He liked to think of himself as a good, decent man, and this sort of public humiliation wasn't supposed to happen to nice guys like him!  "Where…?  How…?" He couldn't even form complete sentences anymore due to the shock, so he simply shut up, a shell-shocked look on his usually grinning face.

        "Shigure-san?  Are you all right?" Tohru asked timidly, watching the man's face working as he struggled to keep his emotions in check.  "Would you like some water, Shigure-san?  What's wrong?  We already told you that it doesn't matter to us!" 

        That wasn't what was upsetting him.  "That story wasn't supposed to be read by _anyone_…" Shigure whispered.  He raised a hand to his forehead and began to massage his temple wearily.  He was getting a headache.  He wanted to go and lock himself in his room so that he could gather his thoughts, but he had to get to the bottom of this.  "Oh, _why_ is this happening to me?"

        All right, so he hadn't exactly squirreled away the manuscript for the story in question.  It had been right there on the second drawer of his desk along with his other short stories.  Maybe he had this coming for not being careful, but he'd never thought that he would actually have to be!  He was the only one that ever went through the things there anyway! 

        Finally, he took a deep breath, deciding that the only way he would ever get through the whole ordeal was if he somehow managed to keep his cool.  "Can you show me where my story is?" He asked finally, congratulating himself for managing to sound so composed in spite of all of the idiotic ideas going through his head for ways that he could keep Hatori from reading the damn story.

        Obediently Tohru left the table and came back with a rather thick magazine.  From the red and white cover, Shigure immediately recognized it as one of the literary journals that occasionally asked him for some short stories of his that they could print.  In fact, just last month Mit-chan had asked him for something that he could contribute, and he'd given her something, but he was dead certain that it hadn't been _that_ story.  "It came in the mail today.  Kyou-kun noticed your name on the cover so we went ahead and read it," Tohru explained, handing it over, "We never thought…well, we never expected the story to be like that…"

        "But it was…nice…" Yuki added hurriedly in reassurance, "It wasn't all about sex at least.  Only my pervert brother would go for something like that.  I really liked the way you wrote about the friendship of the three main characters and how things evolved between you and Hatori…uh…  I mean, Shishio and Hatomi.  I think that Hatori will really like the story once he reads it."

        Shigure groaned.  So they _hadn't_ missed the obvious and had noticed the story's similarities to real life.  Except of course, they didn't know that all the steamy love scenes hadn't really occurred, but had just been added to spice things up a bit. 

He hadn't even stopped to consider what would happen when Hatori saw the damn thing!  Seppuku was beginning to look like the only way out.  At least it would be an honorable death, much better than dying of embarrassment.

        He checked the table of contents and flipped through the magazine until he came upon the indicated page.  And there it was.  _'Tomodachi'_.  Right there, with his name underneath the title in bold, incredibly large characters.  You couldn't miss it.  It was right where people could actually see and read the story.  People like Hatori, who he'd been madly in love with ever since he was old enough to notice the way that the dragon juunishi filled out his uniform pants back in High School.  

And now this story, this confession that he had written, and had been meant only for his own eyes was in this magazine, where people from all over Japan could read it.  Where _Hatori_ could read it, and that was what concerned him.  

He wasn't worried about the general public.  He couldn't care less about them right then.  

What he was more concerned about were the people like Tohru, Kyou and Yuki who _knew_ him and the others of the Hana Mabudachi Trio.  Those who would realize who the real life counterparts of the family doctor, the famous author, and the rather ditzy clothing designer were in this very thinly veiled work of 'fiction'.  

It was such an obvious take on his everyday life and the contrasting personalities of the three elder juunishi, that once he'd finished writing it, Shigure had wondered why he'd even bothered to come up with fictional names for the characters when he could have just called them Ayame, Hatori and Shigure.  That was how blatant he had been.  

And that was how these three had known.  

"Hey, Shigure.  You really have to calm down.  You're on the road to hyperventilating, here.  It's not that big of a deal!" Kyou insisted.  He was getting somewhat concerned.  He'd never seen Shigure like this.  The dog juunishi was usually always so cheerful!  He turned to Yuki, a scowl on his face, "Stupid mouse!  I told you not to bring this up, didn't I?  Do something!  Aren't you supposed to put a plastic bag over the head of someone who's hyperventilating to help them breathe?" He turned to Tohru for support of this idea.

Yuki flashed him a look of immense disgust, "And you're calling _me_ stupid, idiot cat?  You can't just stick his head in a plastic bag.  He'd suffocate!"

Shigure thanked the gods above that the two squabbling youngsters had not heard the calling for medical service.  It looked as though Hatori was stuck with the job of family physician for a long time yet, judging by how the latest generation of Soumas had turned out.  "I'm fine, I'm fine." He hurriedly reassured them.  He fumbled around within the folds of his traditional attire, and came up with a thick wad of cash, which he gave to Kyou with a breezy smile that showed none of the panic he was feeling.  Good thing that he'd never been one to spend too much.  Now he had some extra cash to blow.  "Kyou-kun!  Yuki-kun!  I need a favor." He sang out, having apparently recovered from the initial shock he'd experienced.  

"What?" Kyou asked suspiciously, looking down at the bills that Shigure had practically thrown at him.  Who'd have thought that the man had so much stashed away?  Was writing such a lucrative business?

"I need you two to go to all the stores near the family compound and buy every single copy of this magazine that you find." Shigure explained.  Desperate times called for desperate measures and at the moment, this was the only solution to the problem that he could think of: Keep Hatori from getting his hands on one of these magazines for as long as possible. "It's important."

How sad was this?  He'd always been considered one of the smarter members of the Souma family and this was the only thing that he could think of.  That must say a lot about the state of their family.  Maybe too much inbreeding among the juunishi was finally taking its toll.

"But why, Shigure?" Yuki asked, clearly puzzled.  He was beginning to think that the older man had finally lost it.  Why send them out on such a fool's errand?  What was wrong with the story?  If Shigure hadn't wanted people to see it in the first place then surely he would have had more sense than to submit it to a famous, nationally distributed literary journal.    
  
        The dog juunishi never even bothered to answer Yuki's question.  He just got up from his place on the table and dashed off to his study, having decided that he would be more likely to come up with some sort damage control plan if he were alone.  

The three of them watched the novelist scurry away, now left to their own devices. Yuki and Kyou exchanged looks.  "So?" Kyou demanded of the mouse juunishi, "Should we do it?"  It made no sense to him.  Shigure rarely ever made any sense when he thought about it.

Yuki shrugged.  He brushed his hands off against his pants and got to his feet.  "We might as well.  He already gave us the money."

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Ayame's usual greeting died on his lips as he took in the state of Shigure's study.  It took a lot to surprise him, and this definitely did it.

Every available surface was covered with bundles of some sort of magazine.  He wasn't familiar with it because the cover wasn't like any of the fashion and tabloid magazines that he liked to read, but he did notice Shigure's name featured prominently on each and every one of them.  "What's this?" He asked, picking one up and immediately discarding it once he realized that it was one of those hoity toity publications that had more text that pictures, "Has my Gure-san decided to venture into the glamorous world of magazine production?  Because I would be more than happy to allow you to use my image on the front cover of your very first issue.  Anything for my beloved!"

"What took you so long?" Shigure demanded, not bothering to respond to Ayame's offer.  He lugged a stack of magazines across the room and took a moment to catch his breath before lifting the whole thing up onto the top of a pile that was already nearly as tall as him.  It was hard work, he was already dead tired, and the two younger juunishi had already flat out refused to go out to get more of the damned magazines.

"I came as soon as I could!" Ayame protested.  He made no move to help Shigure.

With a tired sigh, the dog juunishi cleared some floor space around him and plopped down onto the ground cross-legged.  "I called you at lunch time.  It's nearly dinner time now."

At this, a look of understanding flitted across the snake juunishi's face.  Ayame smiled softly down at his friend, looking perfectly angelic with his milky white skin and his silvery hair cascading about his shoulders.  "Ahh…I get it!" He flew across the room, nearly tripping on some magazines scattered haphazardly on the floor, and threw himself at Shigure, wrapping his arms around the winded writer's neck in an effusive hug. "Gure-san!  Don't worry!  You will always remain my number one priority!  Don't be mad just because I was a little late!  I had some work to do!"

Shigure remained unmoved.  "Did you get what I asked you to?"

"Ah!  Yes!" Ayame proudly held out the magazine that he'd stolen from Hatori's cluttered desk upon receiving Shigure's frantic phone call.  "I don't know why you wanted it.  You have a whole lot just like it right here!"

The writer grabbed the magazine and unabashedly kissed him on the cheek, his former petulance completely forgotten.  "I love you, Aya!  You're a real life saver!" He glanced at the white panel on the front where the subscriber's name and address were noted, saw that it was indeed Souma Hatori's copy and grinned.  He'd been so busy thinking of ways that he could get at all the magazine copies being sold in stores near the compound that he had nearly forgotten that Hatori actually subscribed to it, hence the urgent phone call to Ayame, telling him to go get it at all cost. "And to think I was just about ready to kill you a few hours ago."

"But why would you want to do that?" Ayame asked him, lips drawing down into a frown, golden eyes shimmering and threatening to spill over with tears.  "Don't you love me anymore, Gure-san?"

"Of course I do!"

"Then why did you want to kill me?"

The dog juunishi shrugged.  When he thought about it, it had been stupid of him to immediately assume that it was Ayame that had exposed the secret.  Because in spite of his flighty nature, Ayame was extremely loyal to him and Hatori, and would never betray their confidence.  That was what made up for all the stupidity that he and Hatori had to put up with from the most flamboyant member of the Hana Mabudachi Trio.  "I thought you told those three about the whole Hatori thing." He finally admitted, shamefaced.

Ayame let loose with an outraged gasp, "I can't believe that you would think I was capable of doing something like that!" He wailed, pulling away from Shigure.  He crossed his arms before his chest and pouted prettily.  Ayame did _everything_ prettily.  "I would never do that to you, Gure-san!"

"I know."

"You…know?"

He almost laughed out loud at the comical look of relief on Ayame's face.  He must have thought that he was in big trouble when he'd mentioned that the secret had leaked, because he knew how serious Shigure was about taking his time with Hatori.  He'd waited for about ten years after all.  He was in no rush, and was quite satisfied with the platonic friendship that he already had with the Souma family doctor.  It made him happy.  "It wasn't your fault.  It was mine.  I sort of slipped up." 

"You finally _told_ him?" Ayame clapped his hands together in delight.  His mind was racing with plans for the commitment ceremony of his two best friends.  He already knew what the invitations would look like, what sort of flowers he wanted in the centerpieces, and of course, he was already quite certain that Shigure was going ask him to be the best man.  "Oh, this is so great!  Finally, after years of concealing your true feelings for Tori-san you can now consummate your passion for him!" Ayame paused, before adding, "Gure-san, I'm one of your _best friends_.  So afterwards, you have to let me know _everything_!  Is Tori-san really as built underneath those suits of his as I think he is?  Is his behind really that pretty to look at when he's out of his pants?  Does he know his way around a man's anatomy, being the incredible doctor that he is?"

Shigure clamped his hands over his ears, willing the racy images running through his head away.  "Stop, Aya!  No more!" He'd asked himself those very same questions many times before in the past, and it was never good to let his mind wander to those things too much.  He tended to get aroused, which was never a good thing since he couldn't hope for any relief with Hatori, and he always ended up feeling like an incredible bastard whenever he picked up some random eighteen-year-old male or female just for the sake of having some sort of physical contact with someone.  "You're bringing thoughts of suicide back into my head."

Ayame's jaw dropped at this.  "He didn't.  Oh my god… Gure-san…" The snake juunishi let out a slow exhalation of breath, thinking carefully of what he should say next.  It was funny, but he'd never once considered the possibility that Hatori might actually reject Shigure once the man approached him.

The dog juunishi just appeared to be so suited to Hatori.  They'd known each other for years and had gone through more drama together than most people could ever imagine.  They were just so incredibly well attuned to each other that it was hard to think of anything that could possibly keep the two apart.

So this was a very awkward situation.  He couldn't very well take sides, even though Ayame's first thought had been 'Tori-san!  You idiot!'.  He was incredibly disappointed, as though something great had come to an end, and if this was how he felt about it, then he couldn't even begin to imagine what might be going through Shigure's mind right then.  Poor, rejected Gure-san!

He threw an arm around Shigure's shoulder and pulled him closer towards him.  "Gure-san, it'll be all right.  You might think that this is the end of the world right now, and I understand, but things will be all right.  I'll even let you use my body to make you feel better!"   

Shigure bit his lip, trying to choke back his laughter.  How self-sacrificing of the guy, giving him permission to take his pleasure of him.  "Thank you very much for the offer."

"Are you going to take me up on it?  So that I can soften the blow of Hatori's rejection?" Ayame asked, dropping his eyes demurely to the floor to appear suitably virginal and hesitant.

"I have a feeling that you'd _like_ me to take you up on it." Shigure remarked jokingly, "But I don't want to complicate things between the two of us any more than it already is.  And there hasn't _been_ any rejection.  Ha-san doesn't even _know_ yet.  But I'm afraid that he's about to find out."

"Well, that's good then." Ayame said, relieved for his old friend, but also slightly disappointed that he wouldn't get to have a go with Shigure.  In moments of extreme boredom the two of them had often fooled around, until a love struck Shigure had suddenly sprouted a conscience and decided that it was wrong.   

Shigure shook his head.  Clearly the gravity of the situation still hadn't sunk in for Ayame.  "It's not good, Aya.  Not if he finds out this way."

"You mean if one of the kids slip up and accidentally mentions it to him?" Ayame waved his hand dismissively, "Don't worry about that.  I'll talk to my brother.  Yuki's a smart boy and he'll understand once I explain things to him.  By the way, how _did_ those three find out?"

Instead of answering Shigure handed Ayame one of the numerous magazines lying around.  "Page forty-five."

"What about it?"

"Just read it," Shigure advised him.  He knew that Ayame wasn't really the type to read anything other than the fashion and tabloid magazines that he adored.  Even then Shigure knew that he paid more attention to the pretty pictures than the text, but he _had_ to get Ayame's opinion on this.  He needed help badly.    

The snake juunishi flipped absently through the magazine, his lack of interest quite obvious.  "You know what, Gure-san?  I think I'll just wait for the short story audio book collection." He tried to hand the magazine back to Shigure, who refused to take it from him.

"It's a story about the three of us." And as Shigure had thought it would, this managed to get Ayame's attention.  The snake juunishi flipped through the pages with renewed interest, obediently turning to the indicated page.  

There was silence for a few minutes as Ayame took the time to read.  "I get this," He muttered, looking up after a while, "You gave us different names, but it's basically still all about us.  You're the author and Tori-san is the doctor!  This is a really sweet story, Gure-san!  You're such a genius!  You have such a way with words!"

"You haven't read far enough." He was beginning to wonder why he hadn't just left the story the way he'd originally planned it to be.  He'd meant for it to be a simple boyhood tale about three friends growing up together.  But somehow, through the course of his creative process, an awkward romance had evolved between two of the three main characters, and eventually, when they'd grown and one had become a prominent author, the other a successful doctor for an old and very well established Japanese family, several steamy love scenes had come about.  

That was what happened when he let his imagination get away with him.  He'd just wanted to blow off some steam by writing about the things that he felt. It was supposed to have been therapeutic, and now here was that damn, therapeutic story actually published after a seriously messed up mistake, causing more headaches than it was worth.  

One of Ayame's pale eyebrows shot upwards as he finally came upon the first segment of the story that was disturbing Shigure so much.  "I'm beginning to see why you're concerned." He remarked.  Ayame neatly tore the pages of Shigure's story from the magazine, folded them up neatly and tucked them into his pocket.  "I'll just have to give this a closer look later on… But I must say that this is a very original and bold move for you, Gure-san!  What a way for Tori-san to find out!  It's so romantic, confessing your love for him like this!"

"But that's the point!  I _don't_ want him to find out this way!" Shigure moaned.  It would have made so much more sense for him to be talking to Hatori in the midst of this crisis.  One of the things that Shigure loved most about the dragon juunishi was his ability to think of ways to get anybody out of a jam.  But it looked as though he'd have to settle for Ayame and whatever 'advice' the snake juunishi could come up with.

"So why print the story then?" Ayame demanded quite sensibly.  

"I don't know how it happened," Shigure admitted, frowning as he racked his brain for some sort of explanation.  "Mit-chan was here about a month back, having hysterics because I'd promised this magazine that I'd submit something for their next issue.  Only she thought that I _hadn't_ done anything yet."

Ayame nodded, "I remember that.  I was here, asking you if you could take some time off for a Hana Mabudachi Trio reunion.  The three of us haven't had the opportunity to spend any quality time together lately.  It's disgusting how such close friends as us can grow apart!"

Come to think of it, Ayame _had_ been there that day.  There were so many people coming and going from the main house that Shigure barely even noticed who was around his home at any given time anymore.  

It was as though his humble little house had become an extension of the ancestral home for his fellow juunishi, somewhere they could go to when things at the Souma family compound got a little too tense to handle, somewhere to escape.  And Shigure could fully appreciate that, so he'd never minded.  In fact, he rather enjoyed having so many people around.  "Mit-chan doesn't know that I have a lot of unpublished short stories stored away that I've written in my spare time, so she was panicking, about to collapse and I was beginning to feel sorry for her…" Shigure recalled, "And you were around then, blabbing your head off about something or the other.  So to shut you up I asked you to go to my desk to get a manuscript from the drawer where I stored all my finished things!"

And now it was all beginning to fall into place for Shigure.

He'd been reading through 'Tomodachi', the story in question, when Ayame had come bursting into his room with his customary grand entrance.  He'd hastily stuffed the manuscript back into the drawer as the snake juunishi hurled himself at Shigure for a big hug, and forgotten all about it as he went about his usual business of toying with Mit-chan's mind.

His editor had just been about to hurl his computer monitor at him in anger when Shigure had finally decided that the poor thing had had enough.  He'd turned to Ayame, giggling madly, and had told him to get the manuscript from the second drawer of his desk.  

He'd selected a rather vapid romance a couple of weeks before for his submission, and the last time that he'd checked, that particular manuscript had been right on top of the pile, where no one could possibly miss it.

"There's a whole lot of them in here.  Which one do I get?" Ayame had asked him as Shigure dropped to his knees before Mit-chan and began to belt out a song.

"The one on the top," he'd answered absently.  His attention had been focused entirely on serenading Mit-chan with some song by an American boy band.  He had quite a fine voice, but his English was rather mediocre and he was succeeding nicely in butchering the lyrics.  

He hadn't even looked at the title page to check that Ayame had handed him the right one.  He'd simply shoved it into Mit-chan's hand and told her, "See!  I always come through for my Mit-chan!"

And that was how his heartfelt, rather roundabout confession had ended up being published in that literary journal.  

As it turned out, Ayame _had_ been partly to blame, but it had been his own stupidity that had set things into motion.  How could he _not_ have missed that manuscript in all that time?  He hadn't even thought about it once until lunchtime, when the youngsters had brought it up.  "This is all _my fault_!" He groaned.

"He has to find out sooner or later."

Shigure scowled, "That's easy for _you_ to say!  You're not the one who wrote some smutty story about yourself and the man you're madly in love with and had it accidentally published in a magazine distributed nationwide."

"You have to think positive," Ayame pointed out, clenching his hands into fists and giving Shigure a 'manly' punch against the shoulder that was meant to be emboldening, "He might not even notice."

The dog juunishi highly doubted that there would be much chance of that happening.  "If _you_ were able to put two and two together, then the whole point of this story is probably just going to jump up and bite Ha-san's ass when he sees it."

"You'd like to do that, wouldn't you?  And I resent that comment.  I am every bit as sharp as you and Ha-san."

Shigure decided that it would be wiser to hold back his reply to that.  "I can't let him find out about it.  There has to be some way.  I already tried buying out all of the magazines in the stores that are near the family home, but that won't work.  I'm out of cash, even with all that money I've only managed to buy out three stores and Yuki and Kyou have refused to make any more trips.  There has to be a way…"

"He has to find out sooner or later." Ayame repeated with a shrug.

Truth be told, the snake juunishi was beginning to get on Shigure's nerves, and for all the wrong reasons.  Ayame was actually beginning to make sense, for once, and Shigure found that he didn't like it much.  Because listening to Ayame about this would mean that he'd have to let go of a lie that he'd been holding onto for at least a decade. "He will, Aya.  _Just not this way_.  Please gods not this way…"

Realizing that Shigure was dead serious about the whole matter, Ayame decided to take his lead.  He might come off as an airhead at first glance, but when it came to his friends, he'd do anything for them, even shed his usual ditzy persona to be serious and actually _think_.  "All right, so I've gotten the magazine that he has, but he's bound to notice that it's disappeared, and then he'll start looking for it.  I can bribe Momiji into taking the blame, say that he took it to school to make some collage or something.  After that, he might forget about it or he might just go out and buy himself a copy.  You know how he is about reading your writing, Gure-san.  We have no control over whether or not Hatori gets his hands on one of those magazines.

"So I honestly think that the best thing for you to do is to be straight with him, before he finds out from somewhere or somebody else.  I've had enough of you hiding all of this from him.  He deserves to be happy and so do you.  And I happen to think that you'd make each other _very_ happy.  Very, _very_ happy.  Then you guys can have a nice, white wedding where everyone will be happy, and you'll make _me_ the best man. I'll put together an incredible ensemble and everyone will be happy to see me because I'll look so great, and everybody likes to see beautiful things!"

It always amazed Shigure how Ayame could make every single issue about himself.  It was such an incredible talent.  But amazingly enough, the guy was making sense.  He couldn't hide his feelings for Hatori forever, as inappropriate as some people might deem them to be.  So they were cousins, big deal.  So they happened to be both men, that didn't matter.  Those were all just small, insignificant details.  

The only thing that had ever worried him, that had ever kept him from confessing, was the thought that things might change between himself and Hatori when the man found out.  "I don't want things to change…" He whispered.

"But they have to.  Eventually." Ayame pointed out, kicking the magazines away so that he could position himself more comfortably, "And that makes no sense.  You want something more with Tori-san, a natural enough thing, seeing how attractive our dear cousin is, but you don't want anything to change?  How can that be?  Of course you want change!"

"I only want good change.  But if I tell him, he might say no-"

"And he might say yes, so you just have to give it a go!  Either way, Gure-san, Tori-san isn't the type who'd forget about a friend of his just because he finds out something about him that he doesn't like."  And as soon as he heard Ayame say that, Shigure knew that the snake juunishi was right.  "So what I think you should do is go to him tomorrow and let him read this story.  Let him know.  If Tori-san doesn't like it, then I guarantee you that I'll be here to soften the blow, and that Tori-san will still be your friend, no matter what.  He always will be.  No one can forget all the things the Hana Mabudachi trio went through just like that!"

"Tomorrow?  Why does it have to be tomorrow?"

"The sooner, the better." Ayame told him, tone upbeat for Shigure's sake.  "You don't want Tori-san finding that story of yours on his own."

"And if he says no, you'll run away with me to the family villa where you'll help me mend the pieces of my broken heart, Aya?" Shigure asked, taking Ayame's pale hand, bringing it up to his lips and kissing it softly.

Ayame twittered happily in response.  "Of course.  I'll even provide all the sex you need to make you feel better!"

That clinched it.  Though he knew that he would never take Ayame up on that particular offer, he could at least rest assured that his old friend would be there in the worst-case scenario.  "Good deal.  I'll do it."

**To Be Continued…  
      **


End file.
